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I n t e r v i e
w e e s
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Amos Vogel on his arrival to Cuba in 1938
S
h o r t B i o g r a p h i e s
Rosa
Ully Axelrod
Born
Rosa Klein, in Wolfsberg, Carinthia, Austria, 1911. She attended school
in Austria, worked in her father’s textile business in Vienna
and married there in the Leopoldstädter Temple, which was destroyed
during the ‘Reichskristallnacht’. In March 1939 she fled
with her husband and his family to New York via France, while her
parents and her sister could not get an Austrian quota number for
emigration, so they went to Riga, where her sister was murdered. Her
parents died in Siberia from hunger. Rosa Ully Axelrod became an artist
and is still active.
 Ann
Branden
Born
Anneliese Lustig, Vienna, Austria, 1930. Her father was a civil engineer
and municipal architect. The family emigrated in June 1939 via Switzerland
and Italy to the USA, having experienced many humiliations in Nazi-Austria.
They finally arrived in New York in November 1939. Ann Branden finished
school in the USA and married a German refugee in 1956. She works
now as a psychotherapist and specialist in children’s learning
disabilities in a mental health clinic and in her private practice.
Susanne Edelman
Born
Susanne Popper, Vienna, Austria, 1939. The family lived in Vienna
owning a ladies’ outerwear store. They managed to flee via France
in November 1938, after the ‘Reichskristallnacht’. In New
York Susanne Edelman continued her education and teaches now as an
Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Long
Island University. On journeys with her daughter she „re-experienced“
Austria, „like a tourist, but with a difference“.
Frank
Eisinger
Born
Franz Felix Eisinger, Vienna, Austria, 1928. His family, having owned
a fish store in Vienna, managed to flee in March 1940 via Holland
to New York. Frank Eisinger served in the US Army in Japan from 1946-48,
then continued his education in electrical engineering. Working for
different companies, he became involved in designing instrumentation
for nuclear-power-reactors, military aircraft programs and aerospace
programs. He retired in 1993. Watching the TV-series „Roots“
in the 1970’s, he started to become interested in his own emigration
and in the history of the expulsion of Austrian Jews from Nazi-Austria.
Frank P. Grad
Born
Franz Paul Grad, Vienna, Austria, 1924. His father represented as
a lawyer many Social Democrats in court who were charged with political
„crimes“ by the Austro-Fascists. The events of the ‘Anschluß’
came as quite a traumatic shock to him. During ‘Reichskristallnacht’
their flat was destroyed and the father deported to Dachau. The children
fled to England in December 1938 with a children’s transport,
a year later the family was united in New York. Frank P. Grad became
a lawyer, later Professor of Legislation at university and has written
about 20 books.
Lisa Grad
Born
Lisl Szilàgyi, Vienna, Austria, 1927. Her mother was a physician,
her father an engineer. The ‘Anschluß’ was a sudden break,
followed by the loss of everything to the legalized theft then called
‘Aryanization’. Her sister, just fourteen years old, early
on managed to get quota numbers for the entire family for immigration
into the USA, where they arrived in 1939. Lisa married Frank P. Grad
in 1946. She became a pianist and piano teacher, classical music being
one of the bridges that restore her at least a small part of her lost
identity.
 Eva
Kollisch
Born
Vienna, Austria, 1925. Living in Baden near Vienna, her mother was
a poetess, her father an architect. She and her brothers were sent
on a „Kindertransport“ to England in July 1939, and managed
to get to the USA later, where the family was reunited in New York
in April 1940. After high school Eva Kollisch became active in pacifist
and feminist movements. She taught as Professor for German, English
and Comparative Literature and has written short stories, memoirs
and translations. For many years, she has shared her life with the
American poetess Naomi Replansky.
Gertrud
M. Kurth
Born
Vienna, Austria, 1904. She took a Ph.D. in anthropology, but due to
the prevailing anti-Semitism in the academic area, she had to write
short stories and edited a German fashion magazine. When Hitler came
to power in Germany she had to change to the advertising sector in
Vienna. This „first life“ ended when Hitler occupied Austria
and she had to flee to the USA in March 1939. She worked in the food-delivery
business, until she got a chance to make translations, was hired for
research projects and finally went to university again to take a Ph.D.
in clinical psychology. She is still active as a psychoanalyst.
Karl
Neumann
Born
in Vienna, Austria, 1931. His father worked as a physician for factory
workers. In March 1939 he and his sister were brought to Sweden to
live with a family there, until in 1941 their parents, who had fled
to New York, organized an escape route via Riga, Moscow, Vladivostok,
Tokyo, Seattle to New York by airplane, ship and train. His father
managed to open a doctor’s office again. Karl Neumann studied
medicine and became a pediatrician. He publishes and lectures on travel
medicine.
Doris Orgel
Born
Doris Adelberg, Vienna, Austria, 1929. The family managed to escape
together in August 1938 via Yugoslavia and England to the USA. They
arrived penniless, lived in a slum neighborhood in New York, trying
to learn English quickly and to become „adjusted“.Doris
Orgel went to college and worked in magazine and book publishing.
After her three children were born, she started to write children’s
books; about fifty have been published, many of which have won awards,
e.g. „The Devil in Vienna“.
Amos
Vogel
Born
Amos Vogelbaum, Vienna, Austria, 1921. His father was a lawyer, his
mother a kindergarten-teacher. They emigrated via Cuba to the USA.
Wanting to emigrate to Israel, he studied agriculture in Georgia,
but gave up his plans later because of Israel’s attitude towards
the Palestinians. In 1947, together with his wife Marcia, Amos Vogel
founded „Cinema 16“, a film club and distribution company
which eventually developed into the largest institution of its kind
in the USA. He founded the „New York Film Festival“ together
with Richard Roud and taught for many years at the Annenberg School
for Communications. He worked as a critic for the "New York Times",
"Film Culture", "Afterimage", "Hollywood
Quarterly" and others, and as columnist for the "Village
Voice". In 1974 his „Film as a Subversive Art“, a standard
work of film literature, was published and translated in many languages.
Member of several film festival juries in Europe and the USA.
Henry
Wegner
Born
Heinz Wegner, Vienna, Austria, 1922. His father served in World War
I and died of his wounds after years of convalescence. After the ‘Anschluß’
Henry Wegner worked in the „Israelitische Kultusgemeinde“
(Jewish Municipality) where he met his future wife Gertrude Wolf,
until they were deported to Theresienstadt in 1942. In 1944 he and
his mother were deported to Auschwitz where his mother was murdered
in the gas chamber; he was selected for work in the concentration
camp Kaufering. When the concentration camp was liberated in 1945
he returned to Vienna, married Gertrude, and two years later they
emigrated to N.Y.He was employed in the transport business, and in
1962 started his own company as freight-consultant
FILME:
Meine "Zigeuner"
Mutter | Leon Askin | Matura
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